Tea quality and the current market:

The current state of the market for Chinese teas in western countries is charactorised by a low awareness of quality as a differentiator within a tea type or of how to distinguish or understand value in terms of quality for a given price.

There is a growing understanding that loose teas are generally of better quality then tea bags. However the distinctions in packaging and storage of loose leaf teas to preserve quality is not appreciated as evidenced by :

• Most of the packaged loose leaf teas currently on the market are not adequately packaged in air tight bags or containers.
• These loose leaf teas are continuously exposed to moisture in the air, high temperature and odors from surrounding products.

A good proportion of tea bags on the market are made of low quality tea dust to the effect that it is hard to distinguish whether it is fresh or not.

 At Valley Green Tea, we only import teas that are seasonally produced. We use the latest techniques for storing high quality loose leaf teas - vacuum seal, refrigeration and small satchel packaging. The small satchel packaging (10-25g) allows teas to be consumed gradually without exposing the unopened satchels unnecessarily.  We also air transported our teas to Australia to minimize the time of un-refrigerated storage.